STEAM
Hair is back!
It’s time to embrace the fuzz and let it hang freely
The first day I decided to stop shaving my body hair, I stood naked in front of my bathroom mirror, my armpits pale as the wall behind me and not even a strand of hair visible.
The moment stood out in my memory. I tried hard to etch upon my brain the image of myself completely shaven, smooth and hairless as a new-born baby. I knew that in just a few weeks’ time I’d look like Harambe the gorilla.
My boyfriend had a more straightforward opinion: “I hope when we see each other in six weeks that the hair will be already gone.”
So much has been written in the media lately about women’s body hair. With girls and women all around the world bombarding the internet with images and statements about embracing female body hair, body positivity and declaring that no woman should have to shave.
One thing is for sure: the recent boom of feminism and girl power means that body hair is no longer something women need to feel ashamed of. And it’s not just feminists and hippies jumping on the hairy bandwagon: other less extreme women are now proud of their flowing locks, whether it means not shaving their armpits, legs, or even their bikini lines – evidently a lush garden is the place they want the grass to grow.
In my case, body hair has always been a no go.
Thanks to inheriting certain features from my father, I’ve always been hairy. Whenever I went to a hairdresser, she always celebrated how thick, long and healthy my hair was. I felt very proud, and I still do, but lots of hair on my scalp means lots of hair everywhere else too.
While most of my friends could happily shave once a week, I had to get my V line waxed numerous times in order to feel comfortable in a bikini.
In some cases, bushy armpits have even become a trend. You surely remember Miley Cyrus’s crazy era, in which nipple covers and neon pink armpit hair were the bedrock of her outfits.
And she wasn’t the only one. Madonna, Penelope Cruz, Sarah Silverman, Julia Roberts and many more have appeared on the red carpet and in magazines with their armpit hair flowing and showing. And they sure rocked it.
While Julia Robert’s appearance with hairy pits back in 1990 was a breakthrough and something the media talked about for months after, 2017 should be the best time to let it all hang out.
However, the sight of an unshaven women is still, for some reason, an anomaly; sparking flows of abuse and causing outrage in the media. To find out the harsh face of our society and people around me, I decided to say goodbye to shaving – at least, for a while.
Day 4: My armpits are itchy and I feel a constant urge to shave the frickin’ hair off. On normal occasions, the bush, as I call it - even though it rarely resembled one - would have been pruned a long time ago.
I started looking for women my age who let their hair grow freely, to gain some support and advice from the “professional growers”. I was surprised how many I found, including Clara Troy, a 21-year-old sales assistant from Suffolk.
Clara said goodbye to shaving and expensive hair removal treatments more than two years ago. She loves her hair to the moon and back.
“It’s soft and it keeps me warm and all the men I’ve been with since have all loved it too,” said Clara.
Her armpit fur is about an inch long and her leg hair is a few centimetres now, while her lady garden is “just a lovely soft round cloud!”
She admits that sometimes she gets weird looks from people, but most of her friends accept her - and her hair.
“A lot of my fears around it were what people think. Would they think that I didn’t look after myself or I didn’t care about how I look? I felt like I loved myself and my looks and it was completely an act of self-love. To be real with my body, and be more free,” said Clara.
Day 8: Inspired by Clara, my Gillet pro razor is still looking sadly at me from the bin in my bathroom. “Soon we’ll be reunited,” I whisper, while I spray double the amount of deodorant than usual and walk out the door.
The biggest problem of female body hair is the society we live in. Companies encourage us to buy products that leave us smelling fruity and sweet, even though naturally, our pheromones have far from dreamy scents.
We would feel uncomfortable showing up to work with bushy pits, and sharing furry pictures on social media will usually score all the negative comments, exposing how inbuilt the stigma around body hair still is.
Day 12: Today is crucial. My vulva feels like someone set it on fire. The need to scratch it comes during the most inappropriate situations, for example when I am standing in a cramped bus, or when I’m bringing food to customers at work.
However, the healthy look of its surface suggests that nothing is wrong. At least it doesn’t look like a hedgehog that lost all his thorns due to some kind of illness.
Dr. Sam Bunting, a world-class dermatologist, agrees that shaving might bring quite a few risks. “Shaving brings many problems such as ingrown hair, itching, red spots and pain. However, these can be prevented when using the right technique and products. A lot of women forget about after-care, which is often the reason why they develop dry skin and unwanted red bumps,” she says.
Day 15: My armpit hair is about 5mm long, a bit shorter than my magic triangle. I was facetiming my boyfriend and things got a little spicy, as they always do when we “see” each other after a long time. As I undressed in front of the camera, I wished he’d notice something different about me.
(Un)fortunately, he was too busy staring at my boobs (and I can’t blame him for that).
“How long are you going to do this?” he asked. “As long as I can handle it,” I replied. Poor boy, if only he knew how serious I’m about this experiment.
While a lot of “men” like their ladies to shave down there, many women consider a shaved pussy as looking pre-pubescent, and don’t feel comfortable making themselves completely smooth.
By “men” I mean boys of course, because no real man cares about a bit of hair in the lady parts, when that’s the main thing where all the sexual pleasure comes from.
There are still a large number of women who choose Hollywood wax- getting rid of all the hair on and around the vulva - to be liked by men. Be honest: how many of you run home to remove every single hair from your body, after a crush asks you for a date? One would think that living so close to France, our women would take something away from their culture. And no, we don’t mean having wine for breakfast.
Day 22: I feel gross, but the hair feels nice and soft when I stroke it. Today I decided to do arm workouts at the gym. Wanting to see other people’s reactions, I hopped on a back-extender machine, wearing a tank top, right next to the cute-looking guy on a shoulder press.
Halfway through my workout, I couldn’t bear the smell, I looked around to see what monster could possibly be so sweaty, to only find out it was me. I felt embarrassed, because even after an hour of working out, I can never usually smell my sweat.
To make the situation even better, I caught the cute guy staring at my pit hair. He looked away immediately, but I knew he noticed the tufts and I felt my face getting red.
Day 28: It’s almost the last day of my non-shaving journey and I realise that I’ve created some type of a bond with my armpit hair. It’s now 1,5 cm long and light brown. My friends make fun of me and think I’m crazy, but all I feel is great satisfaction and self-love. I think that I’m starting to understand all the other hairy women like me.
After telling some of my friends, most of them wanted to see it, but they were disappointed when they realised my hair is not long as a hair of a Golden Retriever.
On the last day of the experiment, I even felt a little bit sad to say goodbye to my furry armpits, which I looked after for so long.
Policing a woman’s body is bizarre, just like policing a body of a man, so why do people still do it?
Most of the unshaven women love their fuzz and don’t want to get rid of it. It doesn’t mean they’re trying to prove something to men or the society, they are simply positive about their bodies.
My comfort and confidence came back, as I baptised my new razor with its first shave, which happened to be one of the biggest ones in my history of shaving. I watched the brown hair go down the drain as I put on my favourite black top, feeling the pride and satisfaction of knowing that I had proved something to myself, and the world.